Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Pulitzer
prize nominee Gina Gionfriddo returns Off-Broadway with a sharp look at
feminism, presented in a semi-scholarly love triangle. Catherine (Amy
Brennerman) has returned to take care of her mother (Beth Dixon) after a
heart attack, also in the same town where her college ex-boyfriend Don
(Lee Tergesen) now serves as a dean at a local liberal arts college and
is married to Catherine's college roommate Gwen (Kelley Overbey).

In
college, Catherine chose a life of academia and has published several
high profile books on popular culture and the role of women. Gwen never
finished her degree, taking the path of wife and mother, instead. Don,
once with great scholarly potential and a desire to teach, has fallen
into the path of inertia, working only as hard as he needs to, to make
ends meet. His position as dean pays better than teaching, yet requires
less mental engagement to get the job done.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Summer in New York City, if you can handle the heat and the humidity, has much to offer those of us without the money or access to escape to the countryside or the beaches. And sometimes much of it is free. Here's a NY Times article hinting at some of the possibilities...

At a street fair on Amsterdam Avenue today, two men broke out in an amazing dance in front of the former Blue Donkey Bar on 83rd Street to the song “MacArthur Park” by Donna Summer, who passed away last week

Not so many years ago, two men would be arrested for doing this, even privately. Today, and here on the Upper West Side, the men watching cheered and women did not shield the eyes of their children. You'll love the move at the 1 minute mark!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Everyone is falling all over themselves praising President Obama for saying what we can be pretty sure he's believed all along, despite his bullshit talk about how his views are evolving on the issue: He's got no problem with gay and lesbian couples getting married.

I'm not arguing that it isn't a significant development for a sitting president to endorse gay marriage. But let's not forget the other, all-important thing he said about same-sex marriage: It should be left up to the states to decide. So even though he believes it should be allowed to happen, he's not about to impose it on states that are repulsed by the very thought of it. And he's tacitly making the argument that the U.S. Constitution doesn't grant LGBT citizens the right to marry whoever they want. I'd like to ask him why states should get to decide this matter but not whether citizens of different races should be allowed to marry. And I'm saddened that it's mostly conservative and libertarian voices who are pointing out the ridiculousness of that part of Obama's statement.

Obama still doesn't plan to sign an executive order banning discrimination against LGBT workers at companies with government contracts. That's something he could do right now that would have a definite, positive impace on people's lives.

And we can't overlook the fact that Joe Biden's response to a question forced Obama to make a statement now. I don't buy the story that the White House was planning to endorse marriage equality sometime before the election.

And we also must not forget the all-important issue of money. Donations from deep-pocketed LGBTers were down, and he probably thought this action these words would get the checks rolling in again. And he's almost certainly right about that.

We have to demand more from this self-described fierce advocate of our community. Despite his occasional public complaints about Wall Street behavior, the banksters have gotten everything they've wanted from Obama in return for heavily donating to his first campaign. Why do we LGBT citizens happily settle for so little?

Sy (Seymour) Lemler, who lives in Hollywood, Florida, loves
the nearby nude beach at Haulover where he has been a regular for many years.
In 2008, when Bobby, his partner, died, Sy, who is now 80 years old, forced
himself to return to that beach alone, continuing the almost daily ritual he
had shared with Bobby during their years together. On that day, Bobby came back
to Sy. At the nude beach. As a pigeon. With rare exception, Bobby has perched on Sy’s knee every day
at Haulover for almost four years.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

How did a boy from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who
memorized Janet Jackson dance routines and learned to dub his vocal creations
on a dual cassette tape boom box, who became an organic farmer because of a
romantic attachment to a man, and who became a professional back-up hip-hop
dancer for a San Francisco drag queen before returning to his musical roots,
find himself living in the Bushwick neighborhood of New York City with a
gorgeous new five song EP on his own label, 3KB Records, entitled Musik/Dance/Love that fuses the major
elements of his life?

When Andy Kuncl tells you how this all came to pass, you
begin to doubt his age—a mere 36. No slouch, he is also not hyper. He has a calming
personality and a serenity of heart. All his energy gets fed into his art
rather than the talking about his art. He is lanky, pale and with a strokably
bushy red beard and merriment in his eyes. He is the kind of man that
boyfriends might describe as sweet, low-maintenance and easy-going. (The Bushwick
boyfriend of five years was not asked to verify this guess.)

A tour of the bare facts of his life seems colorized even in
outline form.